Saturday, July 07, 2012

T-Bird Development Slows…and some options

Just in case you missed it, the Mozilla Thunderbird development team recently announced that they will be scaling back development on new features to this fan-favorite email client and primarily focus on stability and security work.

So I don’t really have any concerns or cares at the present moment regarding T-Birds slow-simmering.

However, just in case that ever does become an issue with me--or maybe you are looking for some new email client platform--I did some looking around and found the following free email clients that are in active development and could be considered worthy replacements for Thunderbird. I tossed them all on my Windows 8 system and took them for a whirl. Here’s my alternative preferences.

Windows Live Mail - Microsoft. Who knows what Redmond will call it next year as they kill off the “Windows Live” branding and repackage it as something Win8’ish. Doesn’t matter. This email application is the very first one I recommend to most all family and friends. It has a dead-simple interface. It has decent email message handling security and rules/filter capabilities. And setup of a new email account (or multiple ones) is a breeze. There isn’t much not to like with this one.

eM Client Email Client - eM Client. I would be lying to say that I had heard of this email client before yesterday’s search. I had not. However the reviews and comment'-feedback were ridiculously good so I had to check it out. I am amazed. A review of the Features left me highly impressed. It supports both web-based email servers as well as the more traditional email server connections. It contains a full-featured calendar along with event management, task lists, and contacts. Yes, you can import those items from most all other email clients. They have a free edition (registration required) along with a more featured ($) version. Installation was a breeze and setup was a piece of cake. The interface is really, really well designed and (hard-to-admit) outshines Thunderbird. I had no problems getting it going and feeling instantly at home. If T-Bird ever gets its goose burnt, eM Client will probably be my replacement choice, hands-down. Check it out!

DreamMail Europe Community - This free email client was also very easy to get going and set up. Like eM Client the user GUI is very approachable. All the major features you would want in an email client are present.

Pegasus Mail - David Harris. - This is a free email client that is much more advanced. It doesn’t have the same degree of “wizard support” like Windows Live Mail, eM Client, or DreamMail to get your web-based email accounts going. You will need to know in advance some of the more technical bits of your email system such as the POP3 and STMP server names as well as any special ports and security settings connections to them require. The user interface is more detailed than the previous clients mentioned. All this to day it is a more technically advanced email client than average users would probably want or need. However if you want a lot of control regarding your email client and accounts, and the advanced configurations don’t concern you, it is worth checking out.

Sylpheed - Like Pegasus Mail, this email client requires a bit of detailed work getting things going. The interface is more simple to navigate than Pegasus, but you will need to feed it some more technical details to get it configured. Once running, it is very direct to use and is something most average users shouldn’t have any issues with.

i.Scribe - Has a very nice and basic interface. Configuration will require the POP3 and STMP sever details of your host. However I did find it very easy to navigate around in and find all the critical things needed to get it up and going. There are message filters and advanced security setting options. All in all a nice little application.

Microsoft Outlook 2010 - Microsoft - Yeah, I know, it is neither free nor a very “light” email client. That said, if you have it as part of an already installed MS Office suite load, it might be worthwhile to give it another look. I know many folks who are so used to using MS Office at work that they feel right at home running and using it for their personal email client needs at home.

This isn’t a list of the “only” email clients for Windows out there. There are more, many smaller and many “portable”. However these were the ones I considered myself most likely to use after downloading, configuring to a POP3 “web-mail” account, and running on Windows 8.

3 comments:

As far as I am concerned, Thunderbird works just fine as it is (and in some cases as it was). I use it as an email client and for my Google Calendars via the Lighting add-on. I don't use if for RSS Feeds or newsgroups (not that my ISP provides those anymore) and I certainly have no intention of using it as chat/instant message client. They almost shot themselves in the foot with the 'attach to the cloud feature' luckily they saved themselves by making it something that needed to be enabled. I still prefer it over Outhouse...I mean Outlook which I guess is now Windows Live Mail.

@ Guru - That has been my experience as well. It is a solid and mature email client and I'm not sure what more could be added to it in terms of "enhancement" that couldn't be addressed by themes and extensions. I'm sure there may be some new email format technology changes in the future but I bet those will get folded in as they arise.

@Claus, the only thing TBird really doesn't support (though ExQuilla add-on which has been in Beta for the past six months is suppose to provide support) is Exchange Email. For that you are kind of stuck with Outhouse and if you are a Linux user forget it.

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